A26-UncMter Fanning. Saturday, May 20, 1995
Rutter’s Family Farm
(Continued from P«go A 1)
Mike Rutter, who heads up the
dairy processing side, also started
his career in the family corpora
tion doing milking chores with the
Rutter Bros, registered Guernseys.
“My first job when I went to
work at the dairy was loading
trucks,” said Mike, now president
of Rutter’s Dairy. “We all worked
our way up.”
The Rutter family first sank
roots into this rich, flat land in
1747, when Jacob Rutter and his
brother-in-law, Nathaniel Light
ner, received a grant for 370 acres
from William Penn’s great-grand
son, Springettes Penn. The origi
nal sheepskin deed, framed and
preserved, is a family keepsake
that has passed down through the
generations.
In 1795, the grant was split and
200 acres deeded to Andrew Rut
ter by Nathaniel Lightner. Until
the highway department took 13
acres for Interstate 83, the deed
had undergone no other changes
in more than 150 years.
Brothers George and M. Ebert
“Bud” Rutter, implemented one of
the operation’s first major busi
ness changes in 1921, when they
began selling milk from the family
herd door-to-door. Joann Rutter
Hartman is the daughter of
George, and Bud was Leo and
Mike’s father.
This old, framed photograph of the Rutter family farm shows its large brick home
and stone bam.
Thaaa thraa art part owmarahip
bualnaaa —from tha laflbrothara Lao and Mk Ruttar and thtlr j»ln Joann Hart
man Ruttar. Bahlnd than atratch tha flalda of tha family farm, raoantly namad tha old
aat In tha notion.
A natural spring on the Rutter
farm was utilized to keep the fled
gling dairy’s milk cool until it
could be marketed to customers in
nearby York.
On their first day of delivering
milk, the Rutter brothers sold 13
of the 15 quarts of milk they had
bottled, at the price of 8 cents per
quart. Business grew rapidly and
by 1929, Bud’s brother-in-law,
Lehman Crist, joined the Rutter
brothers in the family’s milk
enterprise.
A citation was handed down on
the dairy in 1938, from the state’s
Milk Standards Marketing Regu
latory Agency, when Rutter’s
milk was found to exceed the
maximum 8 percent allowable
butterfat
The resulting publicity, rather
than harming Rutter’s reputation,
boosted the dairy’s image among
the community’s consumers for
marketing high quality milk.
In the mid-19605, Rutter’s
faced another potential disaster
when the dairy’s largest customer,
a supermarket chain, purchased its
own milk processing facility. The
younger generation convinced
their parents to venture into the
convenience store business, a new
way to market milk that was just
taking hold in the region.
Since the first Rutter’s Farm
Store opened in 1968, the conve-
/gets anew look
the new logo and paint Job.
nience store side of the business
has boomed. Their Farm Store
Division now includes 54 stores
dotting Yo k County and sur
rounding areas, including northern
Maryland.
As the farm store operations
developed, Rutter’s Corporation
added a Real Estate Division to
handle the land acquisitions and
construction details.
A bakery added to the Rutter’s
complex a few years ago was later
closed and leased to a firm that
uses the facility to manufacture
750,000 plastic milk containers
daily. Milk jugs from that plant
travel directly to the Rutter’s dairy
processing complex via a trans-
Leo .aer, standing naxt to ths family fann corporate
sign, hoilds'an artist’s rendering of the businsss's nawtruck
design and logo.
poi: system connecting the two
facilities.
In addition to Mike and Leo,
other division heads in the family
team include Dale Crist, president
of the ice Cr :am Division, Stewart
Hartman, president of the Conve
nience Store Division, and Jay
Crist, president of the Restaurant
Division. Several children from
their families also hold key staff
positions in the corporation.
Though nearly surrounded by
the maze of buildings from which
the corporation operates today, the
Rutter homestead, with its
125-year-old brick home and
beautiful stone bam, still houses
dairy cows.
Leo’s daughter, Cindy Rutter
Johnson, is herdsman for the
farm’s milking string of 90 regis
tered Guernseys and Holsteins.
Her two young daughters are the
tenth generation to live on the Rut
ter land.
Hundreds of school children
annually learn about milk and
dairy farming on field-trip tours of
the Rutter’s Dairy production and
processing facilities. The tours
have been tradition at the Rutter’s
operations for many years, and
now welcome young visitors from
schools not only in the York area.
Wn-S
Is the first refrigerated truck off the line wl
CORPORATE OFFICES
Kl &
RUTTER'S
but from numerous surrounding
counties.
Still keeping Rutter’s abreast
with the changing markets, the
dairy’s fleet of white delivery
trucks with their familiar red and
yellow lettering is presently
undergoing a colorful face-lift.
Grass-green truck cabs will com
pliment the eye-catching farm
scene, featuring red buildings and
black-and-white cows, that will
soon be rolling along area
highways.
But while changing genera
tions, expanding building com
plexes, business diversifica
tions—even new truck logos—
evolve and modernize to keep the
Rutter’s Corporation a growing
business, the land itself remains
constant.
Com and hay once again push
through the moist soils of spring
time and the hoofs of dairy cows
trod through the pasture forage,
enroute to the daily milking.
Keep the land, th6y said and the
Rutter family has.
In fact, they’ve just added a
purchase of land that adjoined the
farm and will somewhat extend
the neat strips of crop plantings.
Jacob Rutter would no doubt be
pleased.